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FWD Life rebrands business as acquisition completed
With the acquisition, the company has rebranded its name to PT FWD Insurance Indonesia as part of the new phase.
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Logo of insurance firm FWD Life. (Courtesy of/ivoox.id)
J
oint venture insurance company PT FWD Life Indonesia, part of FWD Group, has rebranded its name as it completed the acquisition of insurance firm PT Commonwealth Life on Monday.
With the acquisition, the company has rebranded its name to PT FWD Insurance Indonesia as part of the new phase.
The deal, announced in October 2018, saw FWD Group taking over shares belonging to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), which initially held an 80 percent stake in Commonwealth Life, for an estimated US$300 million.
“We’re delighted to enhance our presence in Indonesia through this acquisition. Indonesia is a priority market for FWD as we see huge potential for us to change the way people feel about insurance in this highly underpenetrated and rapidly growing market,” FWD Group CEO Huynh Thanh Phong said in a written statement on Monday.
Indonesia’s insurance industry has struggled to boost its penetration rate as it has floated around low single digits for years, and sits at around 3 percent today, yet the growing Indonesian middle class presents a big opportunity.
With the acquisition, the company assures that existing customers and distribution channels will not be affected by the changes. Consumers will still be able to access the company’s products and services through their preferred service channels.
Existing policies will also continue to be honored, the company’s statement reads.
Alongside the acquisition, FWD Insurance also announced that it would enter a 15-year partnership on life insurance distribution with PT Bank Commonwealth, CBA’s Indonesian banking business.
PT Bank Commonwealth president director Lauren Suistiawati said the bank and FWD Insurance “share the same goal in digitalizing our services and processes to meet the evolving needs of our customers in the rapidly changing technological environment in which we now live”.
In 2018, FWD Life announced that it had allocated Rp 500 billion ($35.73 million) to develop its digital business until 2020, as reported by kontan.co.id.
Currently, FWD Life has four distribution channels: agents, bancassurance, corporate or employee benefit and digital. For its digital sales, the company has partnered with K-Link and e-commerce firm Lazada to support its growth.
